The transfer of information over computer networks is an important way by which institutions, corporations, and individuals conduct business. Computer networks have grown over the years from independent and isolated entities established to serve the needs of a single group into vast internets that interconnect disparate physical networks and allow them to function as a coordinated system. Currently, the largest computer network is the Internet, a worldwide interconnection of computer networks that communicate using a common protocol.
The Internet has transformed into a global marketplace of goods and services, driven in large part by the introduction of the World Wide Web (“the web”), an information system. Computers connected to the Internet may access web pages via a browser program, which has a powerful, simple-to-learn graphical user interface. In a web-based search on an Internet search engine, a user enters a search term of one or more keywords, which the search engine then uses to generate a listing of web pages that the user may access via a hyperlink.
The search engine functionality of the Internet should be focused to facilitate an on-line marketplace that offers searchers quick, easy and relevant search results while providing Internet network information providers with a cost-effective way to target consumers. A consumer utilizing a search engine that facilitates this on-line marketplace finds companies or businesses that offer the products, services, or information that the searcher is seeking. In the on-line marketplace, companies providing products, services, or information may bid in an open auction-based ranking environment for ranks on a search result list generated by an Internet search engine.
Operators of some auction-based search engines may be losing potential revenue, such as by being unable to show enough sponsored results for certain search terms. In addition, irrelevant results and/or lower effective revenues from the results may occur. Some operators may not be able to tightly control trade-offs between relevance and coverage of the results. Likewise users' needs may not be met for search queries of a commercial intent. Irrelevant results may be shown if sponsored results are shown based only on some of the users' query terms. Moreover, advertisers may experience low traffic with some auction-based search engines. The advertisers may carry a burden of generating bidded terms corresponding to their web pages to try to maximize relevant search traffic to their sites. Missed opportunity to provide high quality matches to specific queries may occur. Likewise, many users may access the advertiser's site but not purchase anything because the result turned out to be irrelevant. As such, advertisers' may pay for click-throughs from a user that had a low probability of an item being purchased